


turn it into gold dust

by lonelyghosts



Series: in the age of dragons [1]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: All Origins Survive, Casteless Dwarves, Gen, Nonbinary Character, Nonbinary Warden - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-06-28 19:14:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19818763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lonelyghosts/pseuds/lonelyghosts
Summary: Two dwarves- one casteless, one the heir to Orzammar- meet a Warden in the Deep Roads.





	turn it into gold dust

**Author's Note:**

> this is part 1 of my big project: the all-wardens-live dragon age au, featuring a later overhaul of the entire series! 
> 
> title is from gold dust by banners

Vyrim Aeducan is only two and thirty when their younger brother Bhelen betrays them.

They had not held much love for Trian, but he had been blood, for what that mattered. He had always called them by Vyrim, instead of Vyria- at least, once they'd told their truth- and had been their playmate and confidant. The age gap between them had been of seven years, and he had spent much of their childhood acting as their personal assistant in whatever games they chose to play. He had once been someone that they had loved.

Bhelen had come later. He had been a passionate, firebrand of a boy, who had never stopped talking about what he would do once he was King of Orzammar, and Vyrim- though they had only been four years older than him- had tried to be to him what Trian had been to them- someone worth loving.

They loved Bhelen, too. That didn't end up mattering, when everything was over and done with.

Gorim kissed them on the forehead before they were sent to the Deep Roads. "There is a Grey Warden there, of great importance. Find him, and tell him of what happened- he has been looking for recruits, and everyone knows of your skill with a blade. Stay safe, my Heir."

"I'm not an Heir, Gorim," they told the man who was their best friend- who stood by them throughout it all. "Not any longer."

"In my heart, you are Orzammar's Monarch," he replied, and the guards tore him away for his treasonous words. They held back tears to see it at the time. Now, they allow themselves one, two drops of salt, hands clutched around the pommel of their greatsword.

It takes a moment for Vyrim to stand again, but once they pull themselves upright, their knees are strong and feet steady as they begin picking their way through the dead bodies of darkspawn to the place where Gorim told them the Wardens would be. It would not do to tarry.

They are a Kinslayer, even if it was Bhelen behind the scenes pulling the strings. But they could be more than that.

* * *

Naya Brosca was never a good Casteless.

Good Casteless stayed out of the way of the Castes. They kept their head down and bowed when they happened to stumble in the way of a Merchant, or a Smith, or a Warrior. They didn't speak, weren't seen, let alone heard. They were silent their whole lives and then they died. 

Neither Naya nor Rica were good Casteless. 

Rica was a temptress, a seductress, wearing cleavage-baring dresses, slinking up alongside nobles, powdering her face enough to partially obscure the brand on her cheek. She made nobles glance with tempted bitten lips before their eyes caught on the edge of her brand and they looked away, gazes sliding guiltily onto the floor. Good Casteless were not noble hunters. That was the way of it. 

It did not matter that Rica told Naya she wanted love and domesticity more than tumbles in the hay, quick trysts in the back of the tavern with hands under hitched skirts. They needed to survive. That was what this meant. Survival.

Naya knows she is worse. Loud. Reckless. Brash. She trained in bladework since she was a child, only ten and working to perfect her craft with scraps of tossed out stone shaped vaguely like daggers. Beraht bought her service young, back when she still went by her other name. She's twenty-four now and was already getting to be one of his best rogues. She would probably have been higher-up already, she reflects now, if she didn't have a penchant for doing stupid, reckless shit.

Like entering a Proving as someone else. Even if it was the only possible way to save Rica from Beraht.

She was found out anyways. At least she killed him before he could lay his hands on her sister. That's what matters, she tells herself, not dying down here in the dark, but the fact that Rica has a fancy suitor who seems to genuinely like her. At least Rica will be well-provided for, now that Naya is gone.

She misses Rica.

They sent her to the Deep Roads as punishment. "At least let me die doing something useful for once in my life, Ancestors take you," she snarled up at them. Rica and Leske begged on their knees, and so the guards led her down in to the dark places with only her prison clothes and a hood that Rica gave her as she kissed Naya goodbye- once on her forehead, once on her brand, as all Casteless did- and her two daggers, for protection. 

Naya was never a good Casteless. She would still die having killed darkspawn, having done something.

Now she wipes away a splatter of gore, careful not to get any in her mouth, and squints, concentrating her hearing and her Stone-sense till it was sharp as the finest bladecrafts of Orzammar. In the distance, was that...?

Yes. Voices.

She breaks into a run towards the noise, happy at least to find a group of people she can team up with. Caste doesn't really mean much down here, and what it did matter is rendered irrelevant by her skill with a blade. Naya knows that any half-reasonable group of convicts or excavators or whatever they were would take her, at least temporarily, and she'd be safer, for a while, free to think up a plan, find a way out onto the surface and maybe, just maybe, survive...?

She runs faster.

It ends up being a group of dwarves with a couple humans too, which is a surprise to her- they don't see humans much down in these parts. The human is wearing silverite armor with thick plates over the shoulders and breast, emblazoned with the shapes of lion-birds on a background of dark blue. He's much taller than her, tall even for a human; a few shades darker than her, too, with dark brown hair pulled back into a ponytail, and she recognizes him as being the Warden who had been uncommonly kind to her, before the debacle of the Proving. 

She strides forward, forcing herself to project as best an aura of confidence as she can muster. "Warden Duncan! I find myself surprised to see you here," she greets, voice level. 

He turns at the sound of her voice, eyebrows flying up as he catches sight of her. "Serah Brosca!" he exclaims, grasping her offered hand and shaking it. "What are you doing here?"

"I find I've been unjustly sentenced here. I'm sure you saw me fight in the Proving?" she asks, tilting her head a little. "I saw you in the balcony where the important guests stay... so I suppose you know what my sentence was."

Duncan nods. "I had heard you escaped from your cell, but I suppose that was too much to ask for." 

"Hah! No, I got out but... I went back," Naya admits, chewing on her bottom lip. "I had to be sure Rica-my sister- was safe. Beraht would have killed her for what I'd done, after all. And I did manage to stick the fucker. But they got me. At least Rica's safe." 

Duncan claps a hand on her shoulder- Naya stifles a laugh at the sheer amount of space he has to bend down in order to do so. "My apologies. Your loyalty is commendable. Speaking of which- you are a talented fighter, you've proved that much, and there is something I can do for you-" 

He is interrupted by the sound of metal boots on stone, clanking loudly in their direction. Naya finds herself springing forth, her daggers bared, before anyone else could react- later she would realize that they had likely not yet heard the sound, her Stone-sense quicker than that of anyone they knew- and putting herself in front of the group, crouching her knees, teeth bared, when she sees who it is. 

Instead of a darkspawn or another creature, it's another dwarf- a formidable-looking one. They have a short, well-groomed beard full of intricate braids adorned with golden beads, and waves of strawberry blonde hair streaked with the purple that signified those who were without gender. Their armor is far better than Naya's own, and her gaze falls to the breastplate, adorned with the silver and gold symbol of House Aeducan, the sign that signifies...

Oh, Ancestors.

"Heir Vyrim Aeducan! Stone-met and blessings upon your House," Duncan greets before shaking his head. "Though as of late your House has much need of them. I had heard of what occurred with Trian." 

"What happened to _him_?" Naya finds herself blurting out, eyes wide. What in the hell is an Aeducan, a prized child of the throne to Orzammar, doing down in the filthy dark Deep Roads alone? Did something happen?

The Aeducan's eyes land on Naya and they scoff. "Where have you been? All of Orzammar knows of my failure, how I was tricked into slaying my own blood and brother by Bhelen the traitorous one, and how I was cast-out into the Deep Roads as Kinslayer. What, too busy seducing your betters to keep up with politics?" 

"Hey," Naya protests, hackles rising. "You might be an Heir up there, but down here you're just another dwarf, and I don't care who you were or what you did, I'll still fight you. Bet your ass I can put you in your place, too-"

"Peace, the two of you," Duncan says, hands raised. "What has been done is done. Both of you have been exiled here, whether you like it or not. And if you wish to return to some semblance of a life, I can offer you a place in the Wardens. You will benefit all of Thedas with your service; will meet many peoples and creatures, and be heroes by any measure of the term. But it will come at a cost."

Naya's mind immediately goes to thoughts of Rica, up above, who clasped her hands and told her to survive. Of Leske, who wept to see her in chains. Of the darkspawn, who growled and barked and moaned in the silent blackness of the Deep, of the man she met down here, Ruck, who had eaten their flesh without knowing and was barely alive anymore. 

(Across from her, Vyrim thinks of their throne, of the man they called Brother, of their father regretful but stern, sending them off alone into the Deeps, Trian's body on the rock of the thaig, their hungering chest which beats, heart in time with their Stone-sense, saying: _live, live, live_ ).

"I'll do it," she announces, firm as the rock under her booted feet. "Whatever it is. I'll do it."

Vyrim nods across from her. "I shall as well. Nothing shall keep an Aeducan from doing their duty. If I cannot serve Orzammar and all her people, I will serve the world itself instead. That is my duty as an Aeducan, and I will fulfill it, even in exile, even in death."

Naya feels a sharp comment about how the Aeducans didn't do much to serve _her_ people on the tip of her tongue and bites down on it. Duncan asked for peace, and she would give it to him. Hopefully he understands just how much of a sacrifice she's making for him, she thinks to herself.

Duncan ignores the tension emanating off of Naya, instead choosing to step forward and lay hands on each of their shoulders. He looks down upon them solemnly, his deceptively soft brown eyes turned to steel with the intensity of his gaze, as if he's looking at people of immense importance instead of a Casteless and a disgraced heir, thrown out and denounced as a Kinslayer. 

A sense of awe fills Naya's chest, and under it, a tickle of fearful resignation. There's no going back from this... no turning away.

"Then hail and well met," Duncan's voice fills with pride and sorrow, and the combination should make Naya hesitate, but she only looks up at him and sets her jaw, nodding. Across from her, Vyrim's face is just as earnest, and Naya didn't think that she'd ever get along with any Aeducan, but they are sister and sibling in this, two dwarves who would likely never come home.

"And welcome, Naya Brosca and Vyrim Aeducan, recruits of the Grey Wardens."

**Author's Note:**

> just some info: naya is trans, and vyrim is genderfluid + nonbinary, using they/xe interchangeably.


End file.
